I do love the ‘Four Seasons’, never get tired of it, and have about every imaginable recording of it in every performance style. I Musici recorded several versions of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ for Philips over the years, and all are great in their own way. The releases from the 1990’s seem to be out of print, and really it is the earlier versions that are the real finds. A mono version was recorded in the mid-1950’s with Felix Ayo, then…

Vivaldi is of course known for the ‘Four Seasons’, the first 4 works of his Op. 8 ‘The Contest Between Harmony and Invention’. His other Opus collections have a lot to offer, and are well worth checking out. The Op. 3 ‘L’Estro Armonico’ features 12 works for 1, 2 and 4 Violins. It is well-represented with many good recordings, but a few stand out. Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert hold the top honors. The 2 CD collections of these…

The Itzhak Perman ‘Original Jacket Collection’ is a 10 CD set that was issued by Sony several years ago featuring a variety of Perlman’s recordings. Bach, Mozart, Prokofiev and Paganini are only a few of the composers represented here. This collection was a bit expensive at the time, and to be honest not one I was inclined to purchase at full price. Fortunately almost the entire set has been reissued in a bargain Sony import collection: ‘Itzhak Perlman Plays…

The Bach Guild is hot on the heels of their last release the Handel Box with a 7 hour set of Vivaldi recordings. While not all of them may be of the ‘original instrument’ school, there is still a lot to like here. And as usual, it is only 99 cents for 138 tracks, but the price will rise shortly. The Handel is a bargain too right now. Link to current Big Box sets at Amazon:

Of course Vivaldi is best known for the Four Seasons, but that is only a small part of his vast musical output. Vivaldis publisher compiled his works into 12 Opus sets. Recently I purchased an old LP set of the Op. 11-12 works by I Musici with Salvadore Accardo on Philips. Excellent music and playing. Surprisingly, there are not really any sets of many of the Opus works in recordings these days. It looks like Hogwood and the Ancient Academy…